Quebec City is one of the oldest city in Canada. It is about 8 hours drive from Toronto and located in the Fresh speaking province of Quebec on the East coast, situated by St. Lawrence River. Every year, it has attracted thousands of visitor all over the world to visit this amazingly old Canadian city.
To get to Quebec City from Toronto, you can simply take highway 401 or Highway of Heroes all the way to the East. When you pass through Ontario and Quebec border, highway 401 becomes highway 20. We chose to stay at Delta Hotel that is just outside of Old Quebec City. The rate of the hotel is about $200 per night and the parking fee is $20 a night. Delta Hotel is at a very convenient location because you can simply just walk to Old Quebec City without driving. The traffic at Old Quebec City is insane due to the amount of people there. It is very hard to drive around when there are tourists walking around and you have to pay extra attention to the pedestrians. The streets in Old Quebec City also has steep slopes which makes driving the car even harder! If you want to stay at the world famous Fairmont Hotel, then you have no choice but drive through Old Quebec City. Fairmont Hotel is deep within the core of Old Quebec City.
The Old Quebec City is is a very popular tourist place. It has retained its French culture on the street and you will find many shops offer unique craftsmanship. It is definitely a place where you should spend a full day walking around and have lunch or dinner at the patio dining area. For brunch, I recommend to go to Cosmos Cafe that is just a little outside of Old Quebec City. Cosmos Cafe offers very authentic French brunch cuisine. It serves various French food such as crepe. The crepe it serves is huge and there is a lot of varieties! For dinner, I recommend Restaurant 1640. The servers are extremely friendly and offers large patio seating. It also offers unique French cuisine such as escargot.
There is a lot of stores selling hand crafted items as I mentioned previously. Those shops are quite unique and the crafted items are definitely worth a second look. The crafted items are not expensive either so it is a good choice for getting them as souvenirs. There are also 2 Christmas stores and these Christmas stores are open during the summer season as well! These 2 Christmas stores sell many different unique ornaments that you don't see in other places. When you enter the Christmas store, make sure you hold onto your backpacks. This is because you don't want to knock over Christmas trees and break the ornaments. Many ornaments are made out of glass and they are expensive and very fragile!
Other than just visiting the city itself, you should also drive an hour East of Quebec City and visit Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre. It is a huge and beautiful cathedral with many stories behind it. One of the story that I can recall was about a boy having his cancer cured after visiting the cathedral. When you enter the cathedral, you will be overwhelmed by the height of its ceiling and the stained glass window is just beautiful! This is one of the most popular tourist attraction when people visit Quebec City. Note that parking is very limited here and I recommend to go there early in the morning to avoid the crowd. There is a McDonald right around the corner, but please don't park there since that parking lot is for McDonald customer. Besides, your car may get tolled away if you park there. Another wise option is to join the guided tour and take tour bus to here.
While you pay a visit to Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre, you can go a bit further East to St. Anne's Canyon. It is a beautiful place to put yourself in the nature and enjoy the breeze in the canyon. It is a change of scenery from the city. The admission fee is around $20 per person and the parking is free. If you are a student, you get student discount and the admission fee is around $15. There are 3 suspension bridges at S. Anne's Canyon and you can hike around the canyon. The trail goes across the canyon on the 3 suspension bridge and zig-zag down to the bottom of the canyon. Going down to the bottom of the canyon is the easy part. The toughest part is coming back up! It is said to have over hundreds of steps of stairs! So if you are not physically fit, it could be very tough for you to climb back up. Especially if you have heart related disease, make sure you take sufficient reset at easy rest location before continue to climb back up.
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